Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to online communication and, in particular, to chat messages exchanged between users in online gaming and social environments.
Description of the Related Art
Multiplayer online games and virtual worlds are popular forms of online entertainment. Both generally include computer users simultaneously logging into a computer network and interacting with each other in a computer simulated environment. The computer users are generally represented by a virtual avatar. Each computer user may control their avatar to move through the simulated environment, achieve gaming objectives and/or chat with other users and/or non-player characters.
User-to-user communication is generally a prominent feature within any online environment. To promote civility and safety among users, online environment providers generally employ safety or filtering features which reduce obscene language or other inappropriate communication. For example, in some formats, a user may chat directly with another user in real-time by typing characters (letters or symbols) directly into a text-field and sending a message to the other user. In this case, an online environment provider may process and filter user-to-user chat messages by removing swear words, slurs, or other known terms of disparagement. In another example, an online environment provider may disallow freely typed chat messages. Instead, a process is provided where a pre-approved choice of words or phrases is provided for a user to select and communicate other users. The particular pre-approved phrases that are displayed for the user to select from may be determined as possible completions or matches for what the user is typing. For example, if a user types “hel” displayed phrases for selection may include “hello,” “hello how are u?,” “hello there,” etc. Because the user is constrained to select an exact full phrase from the list of displayed pre-approved phrases, the phrase cannot be manipulated to say something inappropriate. Therefore, the user typing “hel” will not be able to send a message saying “hell.”
While safety is a prerequisite for phrase chat, to be successful, phrase chat must also be sufficiently expressive. Users should be able to say as much as possible within the bounds of safe, game-related chat. Any words or phrases that are pre-approved are manually predetermined by the online environment provider. One crucial problem in this respect is that enough phrases or words must be approved for inclusion in the database of pre-approved phrases, so that the user has enough selections to complete his/her phrase.